The present invention relates to the disposal of infectious medical wastes and more particularly to the disposal of secretions and excretions from internal channels of medical instruments.
In medical practice, it is common to insert medical instruments into an organ of a patient, after which these instruments must be purged, disinfected and sterilized before further use. Secretions and excretions which pass through such instruments during procedure must also be disposed of, and this invention provides for such disposal without personnel exposure.
Two methods are currently employed for disposal of such infectious medical waste: In the first method, the waste is collected in a reusable container during procedure. Following a procedure, the container is emptied into an open hopper, thereby presenting a high risk to the personnel handling the container of exposure to infectious matter due to splashing or spilling of the waste as it is discarded. The present invention automates the disposal of waste from the container following a procedure.
The second method for disposal of infectious medical waste involves the use of disposable containers, typically plastic, which replace the reusable container referred to in the first method described above. The disposable containers provide modest protection to personnel since it is not common practice to empty these disposable containers into open hoppers; however, the risk of exposure is still present during required sealing, handling and transporting of the filled disposable containers to a disposal site. In addition, the disposable containers present a detrimental environmental impact upon their disposal. The non-biodegradable plastic releases toxic chlorine gas upon incineration, or otherwise detrimentally impacts the environment in a landfill. The present invention eliminates the requirement for the disposable containers, thereby eliminating associated risk of personnel exposure to infectious matter as well as eliminating detrimental environmental impact.
In addition to minimizing risk of personnel exposure to infectious matter, the present invention affords an improvement to existing methods of cleaning and drying the internal channels of an endoscope. This is accomplished by substantially continuous suction flow thorugh the instrument channels thereby drying the channels more rapidly than possible with existing devices. The present invention also provides virtually unlimited capacity for solutions drawn through instrument channels where existing container size limits volume of solution which is employed during cleaning. In addition, the present invention significantly reduces time required for instrument rinsing by employing suction for this operation in place of manually operating a syringe.